New bag of tricks for broadcast design

Broadcast design studios are now providing interactive work while working with

buttoned up workflows, sophisticated design and lower budgets.

To stay competitive these days, studios need to be able to offer these services. If you’re only offering flat design and your competitor is offering design for the whole experience - the whole interactive experience on every platform, the expertise, the technology, the understanding of these mediums – than that is far more of a value proposition.

Doing interactive alongside broadcast comes down to being multi-disciplinary. It is a different class than a straight broadcast design. The good news is that it is possible to do broadcast quality video interactive work for the web using all the same equipment and software.

There is trend for broadcast designers to do integrated interactive work. For example creating elements for an opening or TV spot, which are used in broadcast, but then also broken out for use interactive. In most cases it’s one designer doing all the motion design work for broadcast and interactive.

Creative agencies are using technology they need to accomplish their goals such as with After Effect. Although budgets are less, there are creative solutions to every problem.

A typical set up using Mac Pros outfitted with the latest version of OS X can do a lot. It is also possible to use Bootcamp on select machines in order to get 3DS Max 2008 to run through Windows XP. All 3D renders can be passed through Adobe After Effects 7 for the final compositing finesse and clean up.

Most of the design elements are built in Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as the textures that supported the 3D structures built in 3DS Max. The workstations can be dual 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Macs with at least 4GB of memory.

More people are finding it easier to finish on the desktop, with the final movies being sent out as uncompressed QuickTime’s on drives, making it unnecessary to lay final renders off to tape anymore.

BDA Singapore recently produced the opening sequence of the 2008 Beijing Olympics broadcast. The winning concept integrated the five elements of metal, wood, water, earth and fire - which according to Chinese philosophy, are the universal and essential elements of nature.

BDA composited graphics and live action footage in full HD format and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound design. Maya, After Effects, Final Cut Pro on Mac Pro were utilized for the project. BDA used 3D graphics to create Chinese brushstrokes that resemble the Olympic ring shapes.

Philippines based post house, RoadRunner, was inspired by sci-fi movies and cinematic video game trailers to produce an in-house corporate film for the company’s re-launch. Some of the scenes were shot on blue screen which allowed the director more freedom in creating virtual environments.

A ground zero scene was shot on location with 3D matte paintings for set extensions. Concurrently, RoadRunner’s VFX team, lead by visual effects head, Dave Yu, created impressive virtual environments and 3D creatures using Maya, Zbrush, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop and composited in Fusion.

Motion capture was utilised to provide realistic human movements to the “digital doubles”. This first-rate short film was edited on AVID and Quantel eQ and color corrected on Quantel eQ and da Vinci Resolve. It was directed by Sid Maderazo of 88 Storey Films.

More recently, the Lab Sydney completed the design package for the Movie Extra Film Ink Awards. The awards cover the year’s best and worst films and the design package had to be fun and vibrant and show a sense of humour.

Creative director, Garry Jacques, and the design team came up with a concept that can be described as schlock Sci-Fi in keeping with the theme of the awards. Think Attack Of The 50ft Woman, stop-frame animated monster movies of Ray Harryhousen and the film posters of this era. Jacques set the overall palette and font styles for the package, with a team of designers completing the elements for the idents and broadcast package. The whole package was completed in After Effects.

The Lab Sydney also did title designs for Dying Breed which stars Leigh Whannell (Saw) and Nathan Phillips (Snakes on a Plane). It was filmed on location in the isolated and rugged bush land of northern Tasmania. Designer, Daniel Bavell and the Lab’s 3D team, in collaboration with Droga 5, designed the opening title sequence which demanded close to 50 VFX shots.

As budgets are getting smaller and technology gets better, designers want to put more production value into graphic designs and have bigger concepts and better art direction. Therefore the search is on for the best plug-ins and tools to use, and how to use them in unique and unorthodox ways.